Sports Top Stories

When history looks back on the Reid Ryan era as president of the Houston Astros, no doubt it will fondly recall the first public action Nolan Ryan's son took as head honcho:

Ryan had a snow cone vendor fired — he was an employee of Aramark — for bringing the product into a toilet stall at Minute Maid Park during an Astros game earlier this week.

The vendor was caught with his pants down around his ankles — literally — by a good Samaritan who also happened to be using the bathroom at the time. The whistleblower switched on his cell phone to record the shocking moment, and alerted another ballpark employee (who was walking into the men's room) to the vendor's behavior. The fan also demanded to see a supervisor, adding, in an unintentionally hilarious moment:

"That's realtalk."

The amateur investigative reporter — clearly the star of the 59 second clip, even though we only hear his voice — shared the video with NBC Channel 2 in Houston, who released it to the public and investigated further. In the clip, the door on the stall is closed, but looking under you clearly can see a person sitting on the toilet with a tray of snow cones (perhaps three of them had been unsold) on the ground next to him.

It might have been better to return the cones to the pantry first, or even throw them away, if the urge was so urgent. Place them on a sink? The baby changing table? Just not on the ground. But hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

And Ryan agreed, so he relieved the person of his snow cones forever:

“This being your first game. Your first day on the job. What was going through your head when you heard what happened?” Local 2’s Bill Spencer asked Ryan.

“Well, right away, I just thought, ‘We gotta let this guy go. There is no doubt about it.' That was my decision,” Ryan told Spencer.

Ryan said that snow cone vendor was fired immediately.

When asked what the ball park could do to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again, Ryan responded: “I don’t think there is anything you can do to make sure human beings don’t make mistakes. What you can do is make sure all employees are trained and that our policies are followed."

And that's how it goes from top to bottom. My question: When does the whistleblower get a network news gig?